Subject: Transition from institutional care to home care and community-based services
The European Pillar of Social Rights stands for the right of everyone to affordable long-term care services of good quality, in particular homecare and community-based services.
Furthermore, the new European Care Strategy website points to a lack of policies tailored to the needs of individuals and conducive to their independence, observing that it is necessary to offer an appropriate choice of services and improve the transition from institutional to home care and community-based services.
In view of this:
1. Can the Commission say how it plans to help monitor progress towards these goals and whether it intends to set up a task force for the deinstitutionalisation and monitoring of care facilities?
2. Given the lack of updated information regarding the opinions of European citizens concerning health and long-term care in the EU, will it consider other social survey methods not involving small, medium or large institutions?
Submitted: 22.11.2022
Answer given by Mr Schmit on behalf of the European Commission
(14 February 2023)
The European Care Strategy and the Council recommendation on long-term care (1) call for a person-centred approach in long-term care.
The implementation of the Council Recommendation will be monitored by the Commission in the context of the European Semester and the Social Open Method of Coordination, on the basis of the framework of indicators to be developed with the Social Protection Committee for this purpose.
In the context of the European Semester, the Commission, supported by the European Disability Expertise networ k (2), monitors the situation of persons with disabilities and relevant policy developments.
As announced in the strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030, by 2023 the Commission will provide guidance recommending to Member States improvements on independent living and inclusion in the communit y (3). Also, the Fundamental Rights Agency publishes reports (4) on the process of deinstitutionalisation.
Several European-wide household surveys regularly collect information on health status, long-term care needs, access to car e (5) and preferences for social policies, including health and long-term care (6).
To further improve the evidence base for long-term care, the Commission is setting up a task force on long-term care statistics, within the context of Eurostat, involving Member States representatives.
1 ∙ ⸱ Council Recommendation of 8 December 2022 on access to affordable high-quality long-term care 2022/C 476/01. OJ C 476, 15.12.2022, p. 1‐11.
2 ∙ ⸱ https://www.humanconsultancy.com/projects/european-disability-expertise-ede
3 ∙ ⸱ https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8376&furtherPubs=yes
4 ∙ ⸱ https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2018/institutions-community-living-persons-disabilities-perspectives-ground
5 ∙ ⸱ E.g. European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in
Europe (SHARE).
6 ∙ ⸱ Eurobarometer.
